Movie · 2025 · Drama, Comedy, Music · 1h 38m · French
Curator score: 2.1/10 (37.2K ratings)
Overview
Cécile is about to open her own gourmet restaurant, finally making her dream come true, when suddenly her father has a heart attack and she is called back to the village where she was born. Far from the hubbub of Paris life, she runs into her teenage crush. The memories come flooding back, destabilizing her certainties.
Ratings
Curator score: 2.1/10
IMDb: 6.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.22/5
Metacritic: 41
TMDB: 6.2/10
Director
Amélie Bonnin
Production
Topshot Films, Les films du Worso, Pathé, France 3 Cinéma, Logical Content Ventures
Cast
Juliette Armanet, Bastien Bouillon, François Rollin, Tewfik Jallab, Dominique Blanc, Mhamed Arezki, Pierre-Antoine Billon, Amandine Dewasmes, Solal Lucas, Jean-Pierre Schlagg, Igor Kovalsky, Ludovic Berthillot, Eric Mariotto, Maciej Tomaszewski, Léo Luchier, Syméon Rohrbach, Zackaria Kaoulal, Adèle Gatto, Marie Hattermann, Joël Villy
Curator Review
Verdict
A warm, lightly bittersweet French dramedy-musical about a woman pulled back to her provincial roots just as her adult life is taking shape. It has charm, a playful sense of pop performance, and a strong emotional pull around family, memory, and unfinished first love, though its tonal shifts and familiarity may not land for everyone.
Best for
viewers who like feel-good musical dramedies
fans of romance rooted in small-town nostalgia
audiences open to a gentle, sentimental tone
people who enjoy food-world settings and family reunions
viewers who like contemporary French cinema with pop sensibility
Skip if
you want a tightly plotted drama with no tonal wobble
you dislike musical numbers in otherwise realistic stories
you prefer edgy, cynical, or formally austere films
you are allergic to nostalgia and second-chance romance
Overview
Leave One Day is built on a simple but effective collision: professional ambition in the city versus the emotional gravity of home. The setup gives the film an easy way into themes of inheritance, class, and the way old selves resurface when you least expect them. Its food-world backdrop adds texture, but the real engine is memory, especially the pull of a teenage crush that never quite stopped mattering.
Worth noting
What makes it distinctive is the pop-musical energy. Rather than behaving like a classic stage adaptation, it uses songs and performance as a way to externalize feeling, which gives the film a buoyant, sometimes cheeky rhythm. That looseness is part of the appeal, though it can also make the movie feel a little uneven when it shifts between comedy, romance, and family drama.
Bottom line
Still, the emotional sincerity is hard to resist. It aims for the kind of bittersweet sweetness that can feel obvious in outline but unexpectedly moving in execution. If you respond to stories about returning home, unfinished lives, and the messy tenderness of trying to choose your future without fully escaping your past, this should play well.
Top Letterboxd reviews
theododo (3.5★) · 962 likes
La la land dans le Loire-et-Cher : Loire Loire land ou La la Loire ? Allez gamberge
rhqrd (4★) · 941 likes
Elle a réussi à romantiser un mec qui fait des roues arrière
mescalist (4★) · 668 likes
pardon mais Bastien bouillon qui chante femme like you à la patinoire
ineslmr (3★) · 596 likes
Pas une seule fois je l’ai vu se laver les mains avant de toucher la nourriture votre cheffe étoilée. #cracra
Grimkujow (1.5★) · 440 likes
Elle devrait faire chanteuse plutôt que cuisinière Juliette oui j’avais log le mauvais film et alors je refais ma vanne